By Gilles Lapouge.
What if the pole was gone? Bother us much. So much for the pole and we know it! We did many things together! We liked to put it in our school notebooks, lovingly calculating its position with the help of our squares and compasses. Once they were, we could add the tropics and Ecuador, roses winds and nautical routes, a whole series of small geometries of the cosmos taken charge of plotting the unsettling mess of geography. The pole, the axis of the world was there absence which contained our globe, which guaranteed its elegance and strength, like a tie clip and beautifies the folds of a toga.
Today, the poles are threatened. No poles themselves, is not easy to suppress what does not exist-but white landscapes are centered. The North Pole is in danger. Its glaciers are melting. For several years, the polar bear, skinny and consumptive, trailing ice bank Ice bank, from film to film, Arthus Bertrand in Nicolas Hulot.
The South Pole has always been cooler (twenty degrees below average). Is not formed by a bank that floats in the sea, but by a giant ice represents 90% of freshwater reserves on the planet. More resistant to warming than the North Pole but every so often, the Weddell Sea side or Wilkins, a big iceberg such as Luxembourg is dropped into water and who knows where it will stop.
The countries bordering the poles, in particular the North Pole (Canada, Russia, United States, Norway and Denmark) - attracted by the heat, get ready to pocket the vast mineral and oil wealth that the collapse of the ice is to make available. It looks like a fairy tale or horror. The men knew long that the treasure was hidden beneath the ice, but not seen. The melting of glaciers is a miracle, perhaps unfortunate, gets his hands the keys to the cave.
At the same time, businessmen and oil wonder how many billions of dollars will win the day eventually opened two routes magical cold explorers looking for four centuries, the Northwest Passage of Canada and northeastern Siberia. Both bring the Far East (Cathay, Calicut and Cipangu) the scope of America and Europe.
Each time you return spring I wonder how far will the white place when the snow has melted. What loneliness, what upside of things go to hide? And the target of the poles, where will he go into hiding the day on which the Arctic ice gone? We will miss that target, like miss a vacuum and the absence of the "zero point" of the world. These spaces retain stocks of supplies Hyperborean more precious than gold and antimony, essential ingredients for men and societies: the whiteness, nothingness, silence, the infinite and the unknown.
"begins the time of the finite world"
Today, after five centuries of great explorations, the entire planet except precisely the poles, is classified and counted and civilized. The incognitae terrae Africa or Asia, that terrified and fascinated men, have been measured, defaced, broken. Latest maps from National Geographic Institute (IGN) are masterpieces. An area the size of a flea could be identified there. But the masterpieces are desperate: there are no unknown land, and there is an inch of the globe to escape to know.
Paul Valéry said in the thirties: "It begins the era of the finite world." The announcement was premature. In his time, the undifferentiated areas of the poles and their horizons to flight management resisted the planet. Civilizations do not know how to capture the infinite in their cadastres. But today, thanks to melting ice, the meters plant flag on the unspeakable. Valéry's prophecy is fulfilled begins finite time geography. The secret is drifting. The mystery flees like a leaky tank.
Treasure Hunt has begun. For geologists, who landed in crowds, the Arctic is a party space. Make an inventory of the resources hidden under the sea that is still the target: the billions of barrels of oil, billions of feet cubic of gas, coal, cobalt, diamonds, copper, nickel, poisons, pollution. Remain to be determined by the owners of these rarities.
International law excludes from the battle to the North Pole. It has no owner, it belongs to humanity. Otherwise, how could a nation claim, if the pole is an unreal place, a mathematical figure, the point of intersection of the axis of the Earth with the Earth's surface? Located along the time, in an area where the hours do not sound as all the meridians and time zones come together at this point, so that the clocks announce every hour at a time. It is a comforting if undivided geological and geographical.
But a second reason: because of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed in 1982, each of the countries bordering the Arctic Ocean has the right to manage its seabed up to 200 nautical miles ( 360 km) nautical miles from its shores, an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). It happens that most of the mineral resources identified are piled near the coast, within that stretch of 200 miles. Thus, there should be no litigation. Unfortunately, a clause in the convention of 1982 sowed discord: if the coastal countries come to prove that the continental shelf around its coastline extends beyond 200 nautical miles from its EEZ, sovereignty increases in some arpents.
This clause really enjoyed the five riparian countries. Its geologists quickly discovered a number of continental shelves. Russia invoked the dorsal Lomonossov. What is this ridge? A seamount that part of the Russian coast, traverses the Arctic space-happy coincidence - happens just below the North Pole. Thus, the pole and the spaces that surround it, according to the Kremlin, are from Russia. To which the Canadian geologists counter that the dorsal Lomonossov is not only an extension of Canada's Ellesmere Island. This allows geologists Danish remember the famous dorsal sarcasm is not nothing but an extension of Greenland, whose representative is, until further orders, Denmark (at least until they regain their rights Eskimos).
At the moment the North Pole seems to be protected, but in ten or twenty years, finance and industry will fall on the seas of the Arctic. In the silence and the whiteness that had escaped the predatory curiosities of history converge the bulldozers and mechanical shovels, refineries, gas leaks, monumental vessels, non-governmental organizations, the stridency, the breeding of cod, hordes of environmentalists, oil platforms, the hyper-super-maxi-tankers, nuclear icebreakers. The white will go from there. Amid the drifting icebergs, the sea is muddy. The fog lights illuminate the city. The beautiful silence of the past will be replaced by the wail of sirens and jackhammers. One of the last reserves of the beauty of things will be over.
A new geography
For four centuries man has tried to squeeze between islands and ice to fill the gap of the globe. West, based in Canada, seeking the Northwest Passage that would cross the Strait Bering and reach East countries. Dozens of brave captains and crews were lost in that maze sparkling, dead in the grip of a bear or loneliness. Their bodies are on the ice. For its part, Russia wanted to find a route to the northeast, to reach Bering Strait same but along the northern coast of Siberia to place their goods at ports in the Far East. Now, the scheduled end of the Arctic ice cover will both steps. It is an expensive gift.
is true that we have to wait a bit to fifteen years, according to experts, for both steps, the Northeast and Northwest, begin to be operational. Litigation Announced: Canada considers that its sovereignty extends over the Firth released that meanders through the Canadian islands. Maritime law has a different opinion. We are facing a toll project. Also have to be powerful fleet, including nuclear-powered icebreakers and ships with triple-reinforced steel hull able to navigate between the remnants of the debacle. But the expected benefits are substantial. Trade with the Far East passed so far by the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal, which already operate at the limit of their capabilities. Both steps reduce both polar distance and navigation time. With the shortcut through the Arctic, the 21,000 miles that separated London today Tokyo reduced to 14,000. Between Norway and China, the northeast route would save between 15 and 20 days at sea.
battles and coronations, famines and plagues, matching the time of the nations. But the emergence of an unprecedented path, the penetration of an isthmus or a tunnel, the domain of a new sea route may leave more durable traces, produced a new geography. And every time that geography is cleared to make way for another, that's the story moving.
In 1498, the doge of Venice summoned his advisors. Had received a letter with terrifying news: Basque Portuguese navigator Gama had made it through southern Africa the Cape of Storms (renamed Cape of Good Hope). It was a tragedy. Until then, India was only accessible by the long and dangerous overland route which Venice had locked and no one but her. That privilege had built his fortune and glory. Now that India was close to Portugal and across Europe by sea, the city of the Doges was useless.
A world map is cleared, another out of darkness. The atlas is redrawn at full speed. The north pole and Ecuador are adrift. We considered immutable borders are erased. (...)
Writer, author of The Legend of géographie, Albin Michel, Paris, 2009. Translation: Mariana Saul. Le Monde Diplomatique
www.lahaine.org
fail Why Kyoto and Cancun? Because it is necessary to increase the temperature to access all the mineral riches that lie beneath the North Pole.
The melting of Arctic sea ice, opening a passage to the Orient, is designing a new geography. Prelude to an eldorado: under the sea ice, oil and other riches are waiting to be exploited modern. Global warming and liberal economy, a music that sounds familiar ...
What if the pole was gone? Bother us much. So much for the pole and we know it! We did many things together! We liked to put it in our school notebooks, lovingly calculating its position with the help of our squares and compasses. Once they were, we could add the tropics and Ecuador, roses winds and nautical routes, a whole series of small geometries of the cosmos taken charge of plotting the unsettling mess of geography. The pole, the axis of the world was there absence which contained our globe, which guaranteed its elegance and strength, like a tie clip and beautifies the folds of a toga.
Today, the poles are threatened. No poles themselves, is not easy to suppress what does not exist-but white landscapes are centered. The North Pole is in danger. Its glaciers are melting. For several years, the polar bear, skinny and consumptive, trailing ice bank Ice bank, from film to film, Arthus Bertrand in Nicolas Hulot.
The South Pole has always been cooler (twenty degrees below average). Is not formed by a bank that floats in the sea, but by a giant ice represents 90% of freshwater reserves on the planet. More resistant to warming than the North Pole but every so often, the Weddell Sea side or Wilkins, a big iceberg such as Luxembourg is dropped into water and who knows where it will stop.
The countries bordering the poles, in particular the North Pole (Canada, Russia, United States, Norway and Denmark) - attracted by the heat, get ready to pocket the vast mineral and oil wealth that the collapse of the ice is to make available. It looks like a fairy tale or horror. The men knew long that the treasure was hidden beneath the ice, but not seen. The melting of glaciers is a miracle, perhaps unfortunate, gets his hands the keys to the cave.
At the same time, businessmen and oil wonder how many billions of dollars will win the day eventually opened two routes magical cold explorers looking for four centuries, the Northwest Passage of Canada and northeastern Siberia. Both bring the Far East (Cathay, Calicut and Cipangu) the scope of America and Europe.
Each time you return spring I wonder how far will the white place when the snow has melted. What loneliness, what upside of things go to hide? And the target of the poles, where will he go into hiding the day on which the Arctic ice gone? We will miss that target, like miss a vacuum and the absence of the "zero point" of the world. These spaces retain stocks of supplies Hyperborean more precious than gold and antimony, essential ingredients for men and societies: the whiteness, nothingness, silence, the infinite and the unknown.
"begins the time of the finite world"
Today, after five centuries of great explorations, the entire planet except precisely the poles, is classified and counted and civilized. The incognitae terrae Africa or Asia, that terrified and fascinated men, have been measured, defaced, broken. Latest maps from National Geographic Institute (IGN) are masterpieces. An area the size of a flea could be identified there. But the masterpieces are desperate: there are no unknown land, and there is an inch of the globe to escape to know.
Paul Valéry said in the thirties: "It begins the era of the finite world." The announcement was premature. In his time, the undifferentiated areas of the poles and their horizons to flight management resisted the planet. Civilizations do not know how to capture the infinite in their cadastres. But today, thanks to melting ice, the meters plant flag on the unspeakable. Valéry's prophecy is fulfilled begins finite time geography. The secret is drifting. The mystery flees like a leaky tank.
Treasure Hunt has begun. For geologists, who landed in crowds, the Arctic is a party space. Make an inventory of the resources hidden under the sea that is still the target: the billions of barrels of oil, billions of feet cubic of gas, coal, cobalt, diamonds, copper, nickel, poisons, pollution. Remain to be determined by the owners of these rarities.
International law excludes from the battle to the North Pole. It has no owner, it belongs to humanity. Otherwise, how could a nation claim, if the pole is an unreal place, a mathematical figure, the point of intersection of the axis of the Earth with the Earth's surface? Located along the time, in an area where the hours do not sound as all the meridians and time zones come together at this point, so that the clocks announce every hour at a time. It is a comforting if undivided geological and geographical.
But a second reason: because of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed in 1982, each of the countries bordering the Arctic Ocean has the right to manage its seabed up to 200 nautical miles ( 360 km) nautical miles from its shores, an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). It happens that most of the mineral resources identified are piled near the coast, within that stretch of 200 miles. Thus, there should be no litigation. Unfortunately, a clause in the convention of 1982 sowed discord: if the coastal countries come to prove that the continental shelf around its coastline extends beyond 200 nautical miles from its EEZ, sovereignty increases in some arpents.
This clause really enjoyed the five riparian countries. Its geologists quickly discovered a number of continental shelves. Russia invoked the dorsal Lomonossov. What is this ridge? A seamount that part of the Russian coast, traverses the Arctic space-happy coincidence - happens just below the North Pole. Thus, the pole and the spaces that surround it, according to the Kremlin, are from Russia. To which the Canadian geologists counter that the dorsal Lomonossov is not only an extension of Canada's Ellesmere Island. This allows geologists Danish remember the famous dorsal sarcasm is not nothing but an extension of Greenland, whose representative is, until further orders, Denmark (at least until they regain their rights Eskimos).
At the moment the North Pole seems to be protected, but in ten or twenty years, finance and industry will fall on the seas of the Arctic. In the silence and the whiteness that had escaped the predatory curiosities of history converge the bulldozers and mechanical shovels, refineries, gas leaks, monumental vessels, non-governmental organizations, the stridency, the breeding of cod, hordes of environmentalists, oil platforms, the hyper-super-maxi-tankers, nuclear icebreakers. The white will go from there. Amid the drifting icebergs, the sea is muddy. The fog lights illuminate the city. The beautiful silence of the past will be replaced by the wail of sirens and jackhammers. One of the last reserves of the beauty of things will be over.
A new geography
For four centuries man has tried to squeeze between islands and ice to fill the gap of the globe. West, based in Canada, seeking the Northwest Passage that would cross the Strait Bering and reach East countries. Dozens of brave captains and crews were lost in that maze sparkling, dead in the grip of a bear or loneliness. Their bodies are on the ice. For its part, Russia wanted to find a route to the northeast, to reach Bering Strait same but along the northern coast of Siberia to place their goods at ports in the Far East. Now, the scheduled end of the Arctic ice cover will both steps. It is an expensive gift.
is true that we have to wait a bit to fifteen years, according to experts, for both steps, the Northeast and Northwest, begin to be operational. Litigation Announced: Canada considers that its sovereignty extends over the Firth released that meanders through the Canadian islands. Maritime law has a different opinion. We are facing a toll project. Also have to be powerful fleet, including nuclear-powered icebreakers and ships with triple-reinforced steel hull able to navigate between the remnants of the debacle. But the expected benefits are substantial. Trade with the Far East passed so far by the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal, which already operate at the limit of their capabilities. Both steps reduce both polar distance and navigation time. With the shortcut through the Arctic, the 21,000 miles that separated London today Tokyo reduced to 14,000. Between Norway and China, the northeast route would save between 15 and 20 days at sea.
battles and coronations, famines and plagues, matching the time of the nations. But the emergence of an unprecedented path, the penetration of an isthmus or a tunnel, the domain of a new sea route may leave more durable traces, produced a new geography. And every time that geography is cleared to make way for another, that's the story moving.
In 1498, the doge of Venice summoned his advisors. Had received a letter with terrifying news: Basque Portuguese navigator Gama had made it through southern Africa the Cape of Storms (renamed Cape of Good Hope). It was a tragedy. Until then, India was only accessible by the long and dangerous overland route which Venice had locked and no one but her. That privilege had built his fortune and glory. Now that India was close to Portugal and across Europe by sea, the city of the Doges was useless.
A world map is cleared, another out of darkness. The atlas is redrawn at full speed. The north pole and Ecuador are adrift. We considered immutable borders are erased. (...)
Writer, author of The Legend of géographie, Albin Michel, Paris, 2009. Translation: Mariana Saul. Le Monde Diplomatique
www.lahaine.org
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